Robert Oxton BoltCBE (15 August 1924 – 20 February 1995) was an English playwright and a screenwriter, known for writing the screenplays forLawrence of Arabia,Doctor Zhivago, andA Man for All Seasons, the latter two of which won him theAcademy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Robert Bolt
Born	(1924-08-15)15 August 1924 Sale,Cheshire, England
Died	20 February 1995(1995-02-20) (aged 70) Chichester,Sussex, England
Education	Manchester Grammar School;University of Manchester;University of Exeter
Notable works	Screenplays Lawrence of Arabia (1962) Doctor Zhivago (1965) A Man for All Seasons (1966) Ryan's Daughter (1970) The Mission (1986) Plays A Man for All Seasons (1960) Vivat! Vivat Regina! (1971)
Spouse	Celia Ann "Jo" Roberts ​ ​ (m. 1948;div. 1963)​ Sarah Miles ​ ​ (m. 1967;div. 1976)​ ​ ​ (m. 1988)​ Ann Queensberry ​ ​ (m. 1980;div. 1985)​
Children	4

He was born inSale, Cheshire, to Methodist parents; his father owned a small furniture shop.^[1] AtManchester Grammar School his affinity for SirThomas More first developed. After leaving school aged sixteen, he worked in an insurance office, which he disliked; after studying in the evening for five weeks he passed three A-levels and went on to attend theUniversity of Manchester, from which, after a year, he undertook wartime service, initially as a pilot officer candidate in theRAF (air-sickness preventing him from continuing past training) from 1943 to 1946. He then served as an Army officer in West Africa until 1947, when he returned to the University of Manchester and spent three years completing his honours degree in history.^[2] Following this, he took a teaching diploma from theUniversity of Exeter.^[3] For many years he taught in theEnglish and History departments atMillfield School and only became a full-time writer at the age of 33 when his playThe Flowering Cherry was staged in London in 1958, withCelia Johnson andRalph Richardson.

He first earned notice for his original playA Man for All Seasons – a depiction of Sir Thomas More's clash with KingHenry VIII over his divorce fromCatherine of Aragon – which won awards on the stage and in its film version, though subsequently most of his writing was screenplays for films or television.

Bolt's writing included primarily dramatic works that placed their protagonists in tension with the prevailing society. He won praise forA Man for All Seasons, his first iteration of this theme, but he developed it in his existential script forLawrence of Arabia (1962). InLawrence, he succeeded where several before him had failed at turningT. E. Lawrence'sSeven Pillars of Wisdom into a cogent screenplay by transforming the entire book into a search for the identity of its author, presenting Lawrence as a misfit both in English and Arab society.

It was at this time that Bolt himself fell foul of the law, and as part of theCommittee of 100 he was arrested and imprisoned for protesting against nuclear proliferation. He refused to be "bound over" (i.e., to sign a declaration that he would not engage in such activities again) and was sentenced to one month in prison because of this.^[4]Sam Spiegel, the producer ofLawrence, persuaded Bolt to sign after he had served only two weeks. Bolt later regretted his actions and did not speak to Spiegel again after the film was completed.

Later inDoctor Zhivago, Bolt investedBoris Pasternak's novel with his own characteristic sense of narrative and dialogue – human, short and telling.The Bounty was Bolt's first project after a stroke, which resulted in some loss of speech and partial paralysis. In it,Fletcher Christian takes the "Lawrence" role of a man in tension with his society who in the process loses touch with his own identity.The Mission was Bolt's final film project, and it once again represented his thematic preoccupations, this time with 18th-centuryJesuits in South America.

Bolt's final produced script wasPolitical Animal, later made into the TV movieWithout Warning: The James Brady Story (1991), about the attempted assassination ofRonald Reagan and the struggles of his press secretaryJames Brady to recover from a near-fatal gunshot injury he received in the process. Bolt was initially reluctant to make the film, but after meeting Brady he felt he could relate to Brady's struggles with a head injury, and many of his own experiences recovering from his stroke found their way into the script.

Bolt was married four times, twice to British actressSarah Miles. His first wife was Celia Ann "Jo" Roberts, by whom he had three children: Sally (died 1982), Ben, and Joanna.^[5] They divorced in 1963. He was married to Miles from 1967 until 1976; Bolt had his fourth child, Thomas, with Miles. In the early 1980s, he had a third marriage, to the actress Ann Queensberry (former wife ofDavid Douglas, 12th Marquess of Queensberry), before remarrying Sarah Miles in 1988, with whom he remained until his death in 1995.^[6]

After the war, Bolt joined theCommunist Party of Great Britain, but he left it in the late 1960s after theSoviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.^[7]

Bolt suffered a heart attack and a stroke that left him paralysed in 1979. He died aged 70 in 1995, inPetersfield,Hampshire, England, following a long illness.^[8]

Robert Bolt was appointed a Commander of theOrder of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1972 Queen's Birthday Honours List for his services to drama.^[9]

Bolt wrote several plays forBBC Radio in the 1950s, as well as several unproduced plays. Many of his early radio plays were for children, with few adapted for the stage.

• The Last of the Wine (1955) – A play showcasing the reactions of ordinary Englishmen to the advent of nuclear armageddon, one of Bolt's pet political issues. One of Bolt's radio plays which Bolt tried to adapt to the stage. However, the play was either never performed or performed a few times and then cancelled.Wine has never been published or performed since. First broadcast late March or early April 1955 on the BBC Third Programme.^[10]
• Flowering Cherry (1958) – concerns a middle-aged man, an insurance salesman dissatisfied with his life who retreats into his fantasies of owning a cherry orchard. His erratic behaviour alienates family and friends and threatens his financial ruin. Ran on the West End starringRalph Richardson andCelia Johnson (succeeded byWendy Hiller) to success but mixed reviews. Many critics felt it too closely resembledArthur Miller'sDeath of a Salesman, and had a brief but unsuccessful run on Broadway starring Hiller andEric Portman.
• The Tiger and the Horse (1960) – is the first of Bolt's plays to develop his themes of individualism, society, authority, and politics. It concerns an ageing college professor, John Dean, who is running for Vice-Chancellor of a prestigious university, but finds his election undermined by his daughter's love affair, a political petition, and his wife's deteriorating mental state. The play starredMichael andVanessa Redgrave, among others, and was directed byFrith Banbury.
• A Man for All Seasons (1960) – involves Sir Thomas More's conflict with Henry VIII over the latter's break with the Catholic Church. Adapted from a radio play Bolt had written in 1954, it is generally regarded as Bolt's finest work – and certainly his most successful. The BBC production was reviewed in theListener on 5 August 1954. The play develops in full his themes of individuality versus society and authority as corrupt. The strain ofBrechtianism which would pervade many of his later works is first present here, in the character of the 'Common Man', who both narrates and takes part in the action as various minor characters. The original run starredPaul Scofield as Thomas More, as well asKeith Baxter as Henry VIII,George Rose as the Common Man,Leo McKern as the Common Man in the West End production andThomas Cromwell in the Broadway show (a role originated in London byAndrew Keir and later taken over byThomas Gomez), andAlbert Dekker as theDuke of Norfolk. It was a huge critical and commercial success on both sides of the Atlantic, has had several revivals, and was made into an equally acclaimed film in 1966.
• Vivat! Vivat Regina! (1971) – Bolt's most successful show afterA Man for All Seasons, a historical account of the reigns ofMary, Queen of Scots, andElizabeth I of England, comparing and contrasting the personalities and reigns of the two female rulers. Highly successful, it ran for several months on Broadway, earning severalTony nominations. The original cast includedEileen Atkins as Elizabeth and Bolt's wifeSarah Miles as Mary. The play has experienced several revivals, most notably a 1985Off-Broadway production starringGeraldine Page as Elizabeth.
• State of Revolution (1977) – An in-depth political depiction of theRussian Revolution of 1917, focusing onVladimir Lenin as "a great man possessed by a terrible idea", and the struggles ofLeon Trotsky andJoseph Stalin to gain power under him. It is told from the point of view ofLunacharsky, Lenin's Minister of Education. The original cast includedMichael Bryant as Lenin,Terence Rigby as Stalin,Brian Blessed asMaxim Gorky andMichael Kitchen as Trotsky. Though meticulously researched, the play received mixed reviews. Bolt himself felt that he had not written the play as well as he might have done.

Bolt may be best remembered for his work on film and television screenplays. His work for directorDavid Lean garnered him particular acclaim and recognition, and Bolt tried his hand at directing with the unsuccessfulLady Caroline Lamb (1972). While some criticised Bolt for focusing more on the personal aspects of his protagonists than the broader political context (particularly withLawrence of Arabia andA Man for All Seasons), most critics and audiences alike praised his screenplays. Bolt won twoOscars, twoBAFTA Awards and won or was nominated for several others.

• Lawrence of Arabia (withMichael Wilson) (1962) – despite disputes between Wilson and Bolt over who contributed what to the script, Bolt provided most of the film's dialogue and the interpretation of the characters while Wilson provided the characters and scenes in an initial draft screenplay. Wilson was uncredited at the time of the film's release, and Bolt alone was nominated for, but did not win, an Academy Award. Bolt and Lean refused to recognise Wilson's contribution to the film, and Wilson was not credited until 1995.
• Doctor Zhivago (1965) – Bolt won an Oscar forBest Adapted Screenplay
• A Man for All Seasons (1966) – Bolt won the Oscar again, adapting his own play to the screen.
• The Red Tent (1969) (uncredited additional dialogue)
• Ryan's Daughter (1970)
• Lady Caroline Lamb (1972) (also directed)
• The Bounty (1984)
• The Mission (1986) (originally published as a novel)
• A Man for All Seasons (1988)
• A Dry White Season (1989) (uncredited revisions of screenplay)
• Without Warning: The James Brady Story (1991) (TV)

Bolt also had several unrealised projects, including a TV miniseries adaptation ofGore Vidal's novelBurr; a film adaptation ofMadeleine L'Engle's novelA Wrinkle in Time forNorman Lear;^[11] a script inspired by thePatty Hearst kidnapping calledThe Cover-Up withOliver Stone;^[12] a film adaptation ofRobert Littell's novelThe October Circle forHugh Hudson;^[13] a script about Irish patriotMichael Collins calledBlest Souls withMichael Cimino; original screenplays aboutGalileo Galilei and explorersScott andAmundsen;^[7] a film adaptation ofAndré Malraux's novelMan's Fate also with Cimino;^[14] and a script about the life ofSiddhartha calledBuddha forRon Fricke.^[15][16] Additionally, Bolt was briefly attached as writer forGandhi andDavid Lean's unmade film version ofJoseph Conrad'sNostromo, before he was replaced on both.^[7]

After being paid $US400,000 plus ten per cent of profits for hisRyan's Daughter screenplay, Bolt became, for a time, the highest-paid screenwriter in Hollywood.^{[citation needed]}

• Lawrence of Arabia (1962) – Officer with Pipe Gazing at Lawrence (uncredited)

• Prüfer, Sabine.The Individual at the Crossroads: The Works of Robert Bolt, Novelist, Dramatist, Screenwriter. Frankfurt am Main; New York: Peter Lang, 1998
• Turner, Adrian.Robert Bolt: Scenes from Two Lives. London: Hutchinson, 1998.ISBN 0-09-180176-1.

• Obituary inThe Independent
• Correction to obituary inThe Independent
• Robert Bolt atIMDb
• Robert Bolt biography and filmography at theBFI'sScreenonline
• The Making ofLawrence of Arabia, DigitisedBAFTA Journal, Winter 1962–63, including article by Robert Bolt